Page 110 of Summer At Willow Tree Farm

‘Where’s Toto?’ she said. Time to take the higher ground for the sake of the greater good.

‘In her room,’ he said, the frown still firmly in place. ‘Having a strop about her dress.’

‘OK, let’s start there. Maybe she knows where they’ve gone?’

She went to dash off, but he caught her arm, the pulse of reaction another infuriating reminder of how fickle her body was where this man was concerned.

‘I’ll question her,’ he said, his dark gaze skating over her skin. ‘You go and get changed. As tempting as you look in jeans and a T-shirt, we’ll have a riot on our hands from Totes if you turn up to the ceremony like that and she has to wear a dress.’

Tempting? Was he actually coming on to her? After the shitty way he’d been treating her since that night?

But before she could get her outrage past the obstruction in her throat caused by that hot assessing look, and the offhand compliment, he had stalked off down the corridor taking the last of the available oxygen with him.

*

Twenty minutes later, Ellie was showered and coiffured and dressed, wearing the bias-cut emerald green silk sheath and kitten heels she’d bought for the occasion. Art and Toto and Dee were nowhere to be found. The young wait staff had taken over in the kitchen.

She checked her phone, her panic levels rising, as she left the house, pulling on the pashmina she’d bought to go with her dress and ward off the autumn chill.

Had Josh turned up? She hadn’t heard the shower going. And Dan hadn’t answered his cell phone and the numerous messages and texts she’d sent.

She tapped out another one, as she picked her way across the reeds they’d laid down in the farmyard to protect people’s footwear. Maddy’s family and some of Jacob’s friends, who were staying nearby, were already being served with champagne and canapés. The fairy lights flickered in the dusk as she rounded the side of the barn.

The scene laid out before her took her breath away for a moment.

The jump and jitter of her pulse caused by Josh’s disappearance slowed to a crawl, the panic retreating to be replaced with something thick and viscous and overwhelming.

Annie and Tess stood at the entrance to the wedding gazebo, which was lit by the tiny sparkle of the lights woven into the ivy and rose garlands they’d spent most of the afternoon wrapping round the uprights. Dressed to the nines in their wedding finery – Annie’s curves looking luscious in vibrant scarlet and Tess’s slender figure elegant in flowing pale blue silk – they were laughing as they directed guests to the rows of folding chairs. The twins and Melody darted about between the chairs with a collection of Maddy’s young cousins. Rob and Mike were nearby sharing a beer with Jacob, who looked terrified, all three of them looking ridiculously dashing in the tailored suits that matched Art’s.

She scanned the growing crowd for her mum, and found her with her arm around Toto. The girl’s coltish physique and sun-bronzed skin, so much like her father’s, was flattered by the rose dress Maddy had picked out for her. The simple lines hinted at the beautiful woman she would become, while at the same time accentuating the tomboy beneath, there were no unnecessary frills or bows, Toto’s short dark hair tied back with an Alice band.

How strange that the first time she saw Toto in a dress, her appearance would make Ellie realise how closely she resembled her father, those high slanting cheekbones and wide chocolate-coloured eyes a strong hint to her heritage.

If Toto had made a fuss about wearing the dress, she seemed resigned to it now, her blush shy and heartbreakingly sweet as Art’s dark figure emerged from the crowd gathering round the bar area and leaned in to whisper something to his daughter.

Ellie tried not to look at Art, tried not to think about the great big gaping hole in her stomach, which widened a little more every time she saw him.

Toto laughed at whatever he had said to her, and Ellie felt the deep pulse of longing reverberate in her chest. But it wasn’t just a longing for Art, it was much deeper and more profound than that.

It was the longing to stay.

Why was she leaving Willow Tree Farm when she had come to love it so much? She didn’t want to go, and deep down she knew Josh didn’t want to go either. But, until this moment, when everything she would lose by leaving, everything they would both lose by leaving, was laid out before her, she had consistently refused to ask that fundamental question of herself.

Was this the choice her mother had been talking about? Not the choice to go or stay, so much as the choice to stand up for herself and Josh’s best interests.

Josh had been so happy here this summer, and so had she. And instead of being prepared to talk to Dan about the possibility of staying, and figuring out if they could make it work, she had spent all her time obsessing about Art and how miserable she felt about losing something that she had since convinced herself had never really existed.

But when had her relationship with Art become more important than what she wanted for herself? And for her son?

Clarity came like a blinding light as Art captured her gaze and, detaching himself from Dee and Toto, walked towards her.

His gaze raked over her and desire flashed across his face. A desire so dark and elemental, the deep pulsing in her chest took on a chaotic, kinetic rhythm. Living here with Art would be hard, knowing that they still wanted each other, but their relationship wasn’t the whole story.

Life was full of regrets, of mistakes, of paths not taken and, as her mother said, ultimately the only way to weather them was to learn from them and forge your own damn path. From this moment forward that’s what she was going to do.

‘You look good,’ he said, the husky voice tense but thick with desire.

For all his commitment issues, Art had made her feel so good about herself in those crazy few weeks. She could use that now.

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